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Bunstable
, |name = Lord Bunstable/Doctor Haggard |residence= Londinium |death= |parents= |relatives= |children= |marital status= }} :"A concoction based on everything Professor Homlomium and I could infer about your Jägermonsters. A miserable failure, of course." This citizen of Albia appears in one of two forms. His default form, which we see first, is Doctor Haggard, a human-looking senile old annoyance, who seems to hate everyone and to be interested only in drink. But we soon learn that he means a special drink, kept in a locked safe, which transforms him into Lord Bunstable, a ferocious-looking yellowish monster, with jagged teeth; his resemblance to a Jäger is soon revealed to not be a coincidence (see below.). The twist is that it's Bunstable who's the rational, intelligent scientist, and Haggard who's the irrational, fearsome (apart from the fact that he isn't strong enough to be a threat) one. Lord Bunstable is the leader or perhaps ruler of the undersea dome that houses the Queen's Society, and he acts (with Agatha's help) as the detective to examine the murder of Professor Homlomium; they also study the equations regarding higher dimensions that the man left behind on a series of blackboards. Bunstable's dual form is the result of an experiment in which he tried to duplicate the Jägerbräu so that he could become a long-lived, powerful Jäger. He partly succeeded, but the transformation was not permanent, and he has to keep drinking his imitation Jägerbräu to stay in Bunstable form. The reason he doesn't just constantly drink it is that staying in that form will eventually result in the loss of his mind. But he hates being the useless, annoying Doctor Haggard, especially when... interesting things are happening. He even offers to take the official Jäger oath of loyalty to Agatha, but she is unable to help him, as she has not yet learned how to create new Jägers. Unfortunately, following yet another quaff of his transformation drink, he has one final flash of insight regarding Homlomium's blackboard equations, and literally in purplish flame, leaving Agatha with his blackened corpse and a whole new host of problems. Whether this is the inevitable end-result of his semi-Jäger state, a case of drink-tampering, interference from the higher-dimensional beings, or something else entirely is never made clear, however, unlike most of the other Sparks in the dome, he does not appear to have been a member of the "Grey Hood" conspiracy, which does increase the likelihood that he was murdered. Possibly Relevant Outside Information H. Rider Haggard was the author of, among many other books, 'She' (short for 'She Who Must Be Obeyed'), to which a card in The Works refers. Alternatively, King Haggard is a deeply troubled and damaged ruler who serves as the main antagonist in Peter S. Beagle's fantasy novel The Last Unicorn. Alaric Pendlebury-Davenport, Duke of Dunstable ("ill-tempered, irascible, and in the opinion of many quite insane..."Wikipedia) is a character who appears in several novels by the English comedic writer P. G. Wodehouse. Lord Bunstable's name is quite fitting for the user of a temporary version of the Jägerbräu: "Be unstable." Saint Bunstable is a creation of the Madrone chapter of the Society for Creative Anachronism, and is the patron saint of drunks. According to his tale, he died in an explosion of burning brandy. Category:Characters with Title Lord or Lady Category:Characters with Title Doctor Category:Characters from England Category:Sparks